Growth Editor, Free Expression

Job Description:

The Wall Street Journal is a global news organization that provides leading news, information, commentary and analysis. The Wall Street Journal engages readers across print, digital, mobile, social, podcast and video. Building on its heritage as the preeminent source of global business and financial news, the Journal includes coverage of U.S. & world news, politics, arts, culture, lifestyle, sports, and health. It holds 38 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism. The Wall Street Journal is published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV).

The WSJ Opinion section has long served as a forum for intelligent, values-driven commentary, dedicated to advocating a consistent philosophy that can be summed up as 'free markets, free people.' While we aim to persuade, every word we publish is the product of rigorous reporting, research and debate. WSJ Opinion offers sharp, original analysis and strong points of view on the news of the day.

About the Role:

Free Expression is a daily newsletter on American life, politics, and culture from the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. With over 100K highly engaged readers, we are looking for someone to build a direct audience relationship that starts with free reach and leads to paid value.

The Growth Editor will own the audience-growth strategy for the newsletter, with particular responsibility for turning Substack into a scalable engine for acquisition and engagement. The role sits where editorial, audience, product, marketing, and contributor development meet, and is accountable for reaching, converting, and retaining new audiences well beyond the existing WSJ ecosystem while protecting the editorial distinctiveness and credibility that set Free Expression apart. This role works in our NYC office.

You Will:

• Own the Free Expression growth strategy — the plan, goals, and operating cadence for acquiring, engaging, converting, and retaining readers — building toward a target of roughly 2,500 net-new Substack readers per week.
• Make Free Expression native to Substack: own the homepage, Notes, comments, recommendations, cross-promotion, and community, and use recommendation swaps, restacks, cross-posting, and contributor-led promotion to compound reach.
• Test new distribution channels, partnerships, and audience segments, and turn what works into a repeatable playbook that can inform future Dow Jones newsletter products.
• Partner with Opinion editors and writers to sharpen the newsletter’s anchor themes and point of view, give each edition a clear reason to run that day, and build recurring franchises and publishing rhythms readers learn to anticipate.
• Identify high-potential contributors and help turn them into recognizable audience brands, with activation across bylines, promotion, community, audio, video, and live events.
• Track performance across Substack, the newsletter, the site, and social — list growth, acquisition source, engagement, conversion, and churn — and run experiments that improve content, packaging, cadence, and promotion.
• Judge growth by quality as well as volume, and work with analytics, product, marketing, and finance to connect audience gains to subscription outcomes, including the decision framework for a future paid model.

You Have:

• Significant experience in audience development, newsletter growth, digital publishing, creator media, platform strategy, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience growing an audience on Substack or a comparable platform, with deep familiarity with its mechanics — recommendations, Notes, restacks, cross-promotion, comments, and community.
• Strong editorial judgment, including the ability to distinguish content that is merely popular from content that builds a durable reader relationship.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort working with audience data, dashboards, experimentation, and performance metrics.
• The ability to work effectively across editorial, product, marketing, analytics, and commercial teams without formal authority.
• Excellent writing, editing, packaging, and communication skills.
• Experience developing contributor-, creator-, or talent-led franchises.
• Experience connecting audience growth to subscription and retention outcomes.
• A genuine interest in independent voices, ideas, debate, and the role of journalism in a free society.